Playing the game and having fun instead of getting upset over loosing loot, get killed or sunk need you to understand the game's design.
1st horizontal progression.
Progression is seconded!!!
It's not about progressing in SoT, if your main goal is to progress, you will get sour if you loose loot someday, no matter why you lost it, because your main goal is to progress.
All the threads about: wasted time, lost all my loot, imbalancies of ships/ crews, RNG of the Kraken or whatever are wrong as hell, because if the gameplay is fun it's not wasted time, but fun, because of the "wasted time playing a game!"
You loose nothing, you miss nothing, you cannot fail, because it's about playing the game and not about progressing further, winning or loosing. All this are aspects of playing games and they are seconded, the main thing is playing the game, isn't it?
Progression happens by the way,
Sometimes more sometimes less, it's winning and loosing the one or the other day, both should be fun anyway, but if you focus on something that is optional and in no way important for this game, not gamemechanically and even not regarding content, because there are no benefits for progressing and nothing is gated behind any form of progression you put the focus on something, Rare dont want you to put the focus on in the first line. Same for winning or loosing, while i suggest no one is going play a game to loose :-D
Or why do you think they made it this way they did with horizontal progression?
2nd sandbox PvPvE
There is no balance for ships/crews!
MP Sandbox games ask you to organize yourself.
If you decide to solo sloop you put yourself in a disadvantage against other players. This can be exciting and extra tense, it can be fun to hide and run or attack the biggest enemy undermanned, there are many possibilities for many tastes, but in the end a full Galleon Crew is always in an advantage, no matter what they do, PvE or PvP.
Let's put playerskill aside or assume it's nearly equal.
That's how sandbox games are, it's essential to them and this game is already a very much solo friendly sandbox PvP game.
If you are good, you can manage to never get caught or you can even manage to sink a Galleone solo.
Try that in EvE or any other sandbox PvP game :-)
3rd You cannot loose entirely and death or loosing loot is more.or less completely irrelevant.
No punishment for dying, no costs, no benefits, no progression that matters gamemechanically.
4th until Rare does not offer PvE or private Servers you agree to interact with other players cooperative and competetive all the time, no matter what you do or want to do!
INTERACT!!! and then decide what, how and when to do.
We got a speaking trumpet for that!
We can use gamechat.
Dont assume allways the bad, ask for help, mercy or whatever, but be prepared for less empathic, less friendly and aggressive encounters!
Nature of a sandbox PvP game is the UNCERTAINTY about other players.
Core Design of Sea of Thieves!
This is a Game for players, playing in a open sandbox PvPvE environment who want to interact socially, cooperative and competetive!
That's no game for achievers getting salty over loosing loot, because progress is their main goal and then complain over wasted time.
Playing is about "wasting time".
Playing is not about performance focussed progression.
Real work or professional sports for example are for that.
But SoT is a game with horizontal progression, if you miss that, sorry for you.
To all of you who now say, but my cosmetics i've earned are imporant to me.
All fine, why not, it is then important to you and it is not comparable as they (your cosmetics) are not important to me!
If someone gets jealous over cosmetics in an online game, i'm sorry i cannot help you, only ask you to visit a psychatrist or psycholigist maybe to learn to deal with this better.
People really you cannot really loose in this game, you can for sure loose versus another player or Ai, versus Rngesus, but you dont loose the game or miss anything, because it's also some sort of a Roleplaying game.
And RPGs are about the journey and stories and interaction of players and also not about progression in the first line.
Progression for RPG's is also seconded. You progress by the way, way more important is that way and the stories you experience on that way.
Step out of the treadmill, stop gaming the system and stop getting salty over loosing loot.
Seriously play the game, be more Pirate and learn the credo of the Piratelord himself:
"It's not about the gold, it's about the glory."
I want to add:
It's not about progression, it's about the stories you experience.
It's not about winning or loosing, it's about participacion, interaction and social gameplay.
First of all it's about playing, not working, not progression, not rewards, not winning or loosing, not exploiting, not tweaking, not shortcuts, but...
having fun, participation, "wasting time" and hopefully laughing together.
good winds and have fun
~Bill
p.s.
"i'm busy doing nothing"
- Winnie the Pooh